Next to me, I can feel the life go out of this boy. I glance over at him, and he looks like a shell, like someone came along and sucked away every ounce of his blood. For whatever moronic reason he grabbed me, I know he didn’t mean it like that.
So I say, “It wasn’t sexual. At all. I never felt threatened in that way.”
“But you hit him.”
“Not because I felt assaulted.”
“Why did you hit him, then?”
“Because he grabbed me in a totally nonsexual but still really annoying and humiliating way.”
The principal folds her hands on her desk. Her eyes are fixed on us like she’d turn us to stone, if only she could. “Fighting on school property is a serious charge. So is vandalism.” And it takes me a minute. She holds up a scan of a photograph, which I don’t need to look at because I already know what’s there. She says to Jack, “Do you know anything about this?”
He leans forward to study the picture. Sits back again, shaking his head. “No, ma’am, I do not.” Ma’am.
My dad leans in. “Let me see that, please.”
As he takes the piece of paper, Principal Wasserman says, “I’m afraid someone has defaced one of our school bathrooms with derogatory comments about your daughter. I assure you it is going to be dealt with. I don’t take something like this lightly either.” She looks at Jack again. His mom looks at him. My dad looks at him, his jaw tensing so much I’m worried it will crack in half.
I will myself to become invisible. I shut my eyes, as if this might help. When I open them again, I’m still in the chair and everyone is staring at me. I say, “Sorry?”
My dad waves the scan. “Do you know who did this?”
I want to say no. Absolutely not.
“Libbs?”
Here’s my choice—I can lie and say no. I can tell them Jack did it. Or I can tell the truth.
“Yes.”
“Yes, you know who did it?”
“Yes.”
Everyone waits.
“It was me.”
It takes them a minute.
The boy whistles.
His mom says, “Jack.”
“Sorry. But.” He whistles again.
Principal Wasserman’s face has fallen, and I can imagine her sitting down with her husband tonight, telling him how kids have changed, how we break her heart, how it’s a good thing she’s almost retired because she doesn’t know that she can do this much longer.
My dad says, “Why, Libby?”
And maybe it’s the way he says “Libby” instead of “Libbs,” but for some stupid reason, I’m about to cry. “Because someone was going to write it.”
And suddenly I feel naked, like I might as well be laid out on a dissecting table, insides exposed to the world. There’s no way I can ever explain to anyone other than my dad the importance of being prepared, of always being one step ahead of everyone and everything.
“Better to be the hunter than the hunted. Even if you’re hunting yourself.”
My eyes meet Jack’s. “Something like that.”
“And then I come along to prove your point.”
He holds my gaze for a few seconds, and then we both look away. We sit there, the five of us, in the most awkward silence of my life, until the principal says, “There are several different punishments I could give you. Suspension. Expulsion. In some cases, schools in Rushville and New Castle have even called in local police to make arrests.”
Jack goes, “How about we let my punishment be that the entire school saw a girl kick my ass.”
“Or we can prosecute you for bullying,” she says to him.
Jack’s mother, the attorney, nearly falls off her chair. “Before we talk about prosecuting—”
Principal Wasserman speaks over her. “And you, Libby, for fighting.”
“It was self-defense!” My voice booms out, too loud and high. “When I punched him, I mean.” Although the bathroom was about self-defense too.
The principal nods at Jack. “Had he let go of you by the time you hit him?”
“Only because I pulled him off me.”
She shakes her head and sighs for three days. “I’m not going to make my decision right now. I want to talk to witnesses. I need to look at your records, weigh the options. But I want to make it clear that I have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to violence, bullying, or anything that even hints at sexual harassment.” She narrows her eyes at Jack, then at me. “I’m not too crazy about vandalism either.”
We’re told to wait outside Wasserman’s office. The security guard and the bearded teacher go in as we come out, along with a couple of kids, God knows who, maybe my own brother. Libby and I sit side by side on a bench. I watch the door leading out of here, into the main hall, and all I can think is Don’t let Monica Chapman walk in, not with my mom in there.
Libby looks at me. “Why did you do it?”
I want to say Read the letter, but right about now that letter seems like the second-worst idea I’ve ever had.
“Haven’t you ever done something mean or stupid without thinking it through? Something you instantly regretted as soon as you did it?” She doesn’t answer. So I say, “Sometimes people are just shitty. Sometimes they’re shitty because they’re afraid. Sometimes they choose to be shitty to others before others can be shitty to them. Like self-defensive shittiness.”